The Viking Funeral

Chapter 46

SHANE WAS YANKED to his feet and pushed toward the floodlit fence, which had been securely anchored in concrete. He was held firmly by two celadores as Tremaine's dead body was unwired, then slumped to the ground at Shane's feet.

"Next/' Santander said, smiling slightly.

Shane was turned and pushed up against the fence. One of the celadores began to wire his right wrist to the top rail as the other one grabbed his left and did the same. The White Angel unsnapped a leather box he had been carrying. When Cortez opened it, Shane could see surgical scalpels mounted on blue velvet. They glittered ominously in the generator's harsh light.

"I think, to start, perhaps the number-three handle with a four-four size-ten blade. It makes a nice, shallow three-millimeter cut." Santander picked a long, bent, chrome-handled instrument out of the case, reached in with his fingers, and selected a small curved blade, then snapped it onto the end, tightening it with the set screw. "I am sorry that I am forgoing normal surgical sterilization techniques. I used to scrub for the fun of it, but it was really just foreplay, because you'll be long gone before any infection could set in."

"Knock yourself out," Shane murmured as the White Angel moved forward, holding the scalpel delicately between his thumb and forefinger. "We'll need to get that shirt off." Santa turned and barked the order. "La camisa!" One of the celadores ripped Shane's shirt. Then the White Angel stepped forward and placed the tip of the scalpel under Shane's nipple. He pressed lightly, and Shane felt the blade pierce his skin.

"Is this not a feeling close to ecstasy?" Cortez said, his voice turning husky with sexual passion.

Shane spit in his face.

Out of nowhere, gunfire erupted on all sides of them. Shane spun his head in time to see half a dozen separate muzzle flashes in the desert. All four celadores standing near him went down quickly, riddled with bullets. Immediately, Santander Cortez fell, blood spurting out of a huge hole in his neck.

Shane heard orders shouted in Spanish and saw movement at the edge of his vision. Then twenty men dressed in faded khaki ran toward him while reloading and firing their auto-mags.

He heard Alexa scream, "Not him! Don't shoot! Not him!"

He thought he saw Luis Rosario, in his porkpie hat, also yelling in Spanish.

Seconds later, hands were pulling at his wrists, untwisting the wire. He fell, with his wounded leg buckling under him. Then Shane was on his back, looking up into Alexa's blue eyes, her hand cradling his head as he lay in the sand. Jo-Jo Knight appeared over her shoulder, a smoking Uzi clutched in his fist.

"Ahh, damn… Lookit you," Alexa said sadly, studying his beaten face. "I can't leave you alone for a minute."

He forced a weak smile just as more automatic weapons cut loose. Soldiers standing near him were now being cut down by a vicious barrage of machine-gun fire coming from the direction of the garrison. The troops around him dove into a shallow wash, proned out, then began returning fire. Jo-Jo Knight and Luis Rosario grabbed Shane.

"Let's get this gringo outta here," Rosario said. They lifted him quickly and began carrying him as best they could away from the fire-fight.

Alexa spun and emptied a 9-millimeter clip in the direction of the fort, trying to set up some cover fire but at the same time exposing herself dangerously. Miraculously, she wasn't hit. They began moving across the uneven desert terrain, stumbling in the dark, Rosario and Knight half-carrying, half-yanking Shane along, dragging him like a sack of vegetables.

"Will you guys put me down? I can walk!" he yelled as Rosario and Knight, each supporting a side, kept running until they were a safe distance away, then stopped to help Shane get his feet under him. Alexa pushed the eject button on her Astra, dropped the empty clip onto the sand at her feet, then slammed in a new one. They kept moving, but more slowly now, Shane struggling to keep his leg working under him until they finally came to an old English lorry with primered fenders parked by the road with several other army surplus trucks.

"Let's take this one," Rosario said. They helped Shane onto the back of the truck while Jo-Jo Knight got behind the wheel. He turned a switch on the dash, which substituted for an ignition key on most military vehicles. The engine started.

Alexa and Luis jumped up on the back of the flatbed next to Shane.

"Roll it!" she yelled.

The lorry rumbled across the desert, past three or four other deserted military vehicles. They could hear the sounds of the fire-fight receding behind them.

"Who were those guys?" Shane asked.

"Marxist rebels," Alexa said. When Shane looked surprised, she added: "We take help wherever we find it."

Soon they were back on the dirt road, heading out of Maicao. The old English lorry creaked and groaned and bounced through potholes. A few miles farther they hit pavement. The heavy sand tires vibrated on the two-lane concrete road that announced the beginning of Maicao's unconventional airport.

Shane saw a small blue and white Citation jet with U. S. tail markings taxiing on the ground near them, already turning around, and readying itself for takeoff. The lorry swung under the starboard wing and stopped.

Somehow, they got Shane out of the back, carrying and dragging him to the waiting plane.

"Will you guys let go of me?" he demanded. They ignored his request and pushed him roughly up the ladder into the jet.

"Okay, 'Darker Than Me,' let's do this dust off," Rosario said to Jo-Jo Knight, who was pulling the Citation's cabin door closed behind them.

Almost before the door was latched, the jet was rolling. They hurtled down the poorly lit runway, engines screaming to rotation speed, and then the small executive jet lifted off the tarmac. The strange, six-lane runway fell away beneath them as the government pilot banked right, heading north toward the Caribbean Sea fifteen miles away.

"Thank God you found me," Shane said.

Alexa grinned. "I told you that pill would locate you within a meter." Shane smiled and took her hand.

"We found out from a CIA internal briefing in Washington that this garrison was being used to billet a right-wing Colombian death squad, commanded by an ex-Argentine colonel named Raphael Aziz," Alexa continued.

"Aziz?" he said. "Is he the White Angel?"

She nodded. "We knew from the satellite tracking that you were on that base. Rosario has some very interesting contacts. He got us hooked up with that band of Marxist guerrillas through a drug source he has in Medellin. So we made a deal with Aziz's guerrilla enemies, who were already near here. They agreed to give us some backup in return for finding out where Colonel Aziz was. We surrounded the place, but before we could move, out you came."

"He skinned Tremaine Lane alive," Shane said softly.

She didn't answer but squeezed his hand. "You need a hospital."

"I'll settle for a kiss."

So that's what they did until Luis Rosario and Jo-Jo Knight dropped into the two seats facing them.

"Is this what white people do after a gun-fight?" Rosario asked. "Cubans just drink and sing."

"I thought Cubans drank and made love to sheep." Knight grinned.

"Okay, okay." Alexa grinned. "Knock it off, you guys."

Jo-Jo said, "Unless you want this bird to circle over the water, we need to figure out where we want to go. Here's what me and this little freeway dancer figured out: your buddy Jody tried to cash in the escrow account in Aruba, but Sandro and Papa Joe beat him to it. By the time he showed up, they already cleaned it out. I think Papa Joe also set up the Vikings to be killed by the San Andresitos in Maicao after you delivered the product up there. You guys were just donkeys; he was never gonna share that money with you."

"After Jody went to Aruba and discovered the money was gone, he disappeared on a charter flight to Florida," Rosario said. "We lost the trail in Miami. Can't figure why he'd be going to Florida, anyway."

"Jody's not going there," Shane said. "He might have filed his flight plan for Miami, but trust me, he's going wherever Papa Joe and Sandy Mantoor are. Jody's gonna kill those two for setting him up and taking his money." Shane ran it over in his mind for a minute. "Papa Joe's got a house in Palm Springs. Maybe there."

Alexa shook her head. "After we broke the code book and found Jose Mondragon's name, we hit that desert house looking for clues to where you might be. I'm afraid that site got burned. Jose won't be going back to the Springs."

Shane gave it some more thought. "L. A.," he finally said.

"Why L. A.?" Alexa frowned. "That's the hardest place for him to hide. Three thousand cops there know he's alive and what he looks like."

"Because that's where Lisa told me she was going, and Lisa's his only contact to Papa Joe. I know this guy. It's personal… Jody is gonna get his money back, or die trying."

Alexa went forward to tell the pilot while Shane put his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. He was bone-tired. Sleep came in seconds.

They were at Ryder Field… Back in the sixth grade. Jody in his Pirates uniform, smiling at Shane… Slamming a ball into his pitcher's mitt, pulling it out, throwing it back again. "Good game. Hot Sauce… Way t'call the hitters. "

"You threw the Ks," Shane answered, his own voice bright and happy.

"We're a team. Nothing can ever change that." Jody grinned.

Shane suddenly felt the need to tell Jody how he really felt: how much his friendship meant… What it was like to have been left at a hospital… To have never known his own parents… To be raised by strangers. How he never knew his mother. How he would lie in bed wondering why she had left him. Who was she? Why didn't she care enough to keep him? "You're all I have," Shane finally said. "You're the only one who ever cared about me."

Little Jody grinned and dropped the ball, throwing his arm around his ten-year-old buddy. "Don't you forget it, Hot Sauce."

"I'll never forget," Shane said, with all his heart. "You have my solemn promise."